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Cognitive Therapy and Research

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03-11-2023 | Psychotherapy | Original Article

Emphasizing Controllability over Biological Processes Underlying Depression: Effects on the Perceived Credibility of Psychotherapy

Authors: Annalise M. Perricone, Woo-kyoung Ahn

Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Issue 2/2024

Abstract

Background

Laypeople tend to misunderstand that biological processes underlying mental disorders are largely uncontrollable with human effort. In contrast, psychotherapy is believed to require individual effort and is therefore seen as incompatible with addressing biological processes. This study examined whether explaining how some biological processes are controllable and malleable can remove distrust of psychotherapy when depression is attributed to biological factors.

Methods

Participants from the general public (n = 898) and individuals with symptoms of depression (n = 672) rated the effectiveness of psychotherapy for depression before and after learning about biological causes of a depression case. In the biology-controllability condition, participants learned how psychotherapy helps people control biological processes underlying depression. In the psychotherapy-controllability condition, they learned how psychotherapy teaches control over depressive symptoms, rather than biological processes.

Results

Unlike the control condition, participants in the biology-controllability and psychotherapy-controllability conditions judged psychotherapy as significantly more effective, and this increase was greater in the biology-controllability condition than in the psychotherapy-controllability condition.

Conclusions

An intervention specifically counteracting the belief that biological processes are uncontrollable can best mitigate distrust of psychotherapy for biologically attributed depression.

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See Wallman and Melvin (2022) who found an association between parents endorsing biological etiologies of their child’s depression and preferring psychotherapy for their child.

Of course, various barriers (notably insurance reimbursement policies) likely drive this trend; for further discussion see Tadmon and Olfson (2022). Yet increasing endorsement of biological explanations for mental disorders and the perception that psychotherapy is less effective for biologically based disorders, may also be contributing.

Mturk Toolkit is a platform developed by CloudResearch, which recruits Mturk workers, but independently vets workers (i.e., by blocking workers with hidden locations, running VPN checks and creating anonymized CloudResearch IDs for respondents). The platform also independently collects worker demographic information. In both Studies 1 and 2 we also used Captchas to avoid recruiting bots.

In order to average across all 6 items, we subsequently recoded items #4 and #6 to a 1-9-point scale by multiplying each score on items #4 or #6 by 9 and then dividing that score by 100.

Using the SPSS procedure for missing data, participants with any missing data on the collapsed dependent measures were not included in ANOVAs.

In the Supplement, we also report analyses involving BDI-II as an additional interaction term using regression analyses. BDI-II scores did not interact with condition effects.

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Title: Emphasizing Controllability over Biological Processes Underlying Depression: Effects on the Perceived Credibility of Psychotherapy
Authors: Annalise M. Perricone
Woo-kyoung Ahn
Publication date: 03-11-2023
Publisher: Springer US
Keywords: Psychotherapy
Mood Disorders
Affective Disorder
Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Issue 2/2024
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10444-y

2024 ASCO Annual Meeting

Springer Medicine

Emphasizing Controllability over Biological Processes Underlying Depression: Effects on the Perceived Credibility of Psychotherapy

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

2024 ASCO Annual Meeting

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

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